


Stricken

by Sporksprocket



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, It’s a weird take not gonna lie, News Media, With A Twist, angst first tho, happy is not gonna happen for a while
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2019-09-04 21:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporksprocket/pseuds/Sporksprocket
Summary: “Keeping them grounded is our mission... Its very important to me that they get the chance to be children,” says Joseph Pulitzer, CEO of The World Inc. and creator of the popular television series, Stricken.-Behind the scenes, however, there is a different story.





	1. Prologue

> **Young Acting Titans and the Man at the Heart of It All**
> 
> “Keeping them grounded is our mission... Its very important to me that they get the chance to be children,” says Joseph Pulitzer, CEO of The World Inc. and creator of the popular television series, Stricken.

The year is 2013 and a new corporation, then named Pulitzer Productions, was about to put out their first tv series. Unbeknownst to them, it would soon be a hit and a cult classic in the making.

At the helm was Joseph Pulitzer, a young man of 55 who came from obscurity, but is now champion of a multi-billion dollar company, majority of the money generated by the ever popular tv show, Stricken.

When boiled down to its bare bones, Stricken seems like a show doomed from the start— a rag-tag group of boys struggling to survive in 1890’s New York while coming of age— which showed slight promise to maybe generating a few young, female viewers. However, the graphic depiction of violence and incorporation of violent and sensitive topics as well as the heart-wrenching depiction of male friendship set this show apart from all the others.

As word got around, the number of views spiked. All demographics appeared to agree— this is a show worth watching. As 2018 draws to a close, I sat down with Mr. Pulitzer to discuss the journey from new show to tv juggernaut, still running strong in the middle of its 5th season, as well as the show’s realism and the young actors.

“It was a real surprise, the popularity of the show. We weren’t expecting it to do so well, but I don’t think anyone was,” Pulitzer smiles. “I think it just goes to show how talented our writers, crew, and cast really are.”

“Speaking of cast, a lot of your actors appear to be on the younger side— I say appear as none seem to be in the public eye at all, not even social media.”

“Yes, well, for a show known for its realism, it would be strange if we threw that away when it comes to the ages of the actors. All of the actors are playing the same age that they are in real life. Because of this, all of the young adults have made an agreement that, for their own good, they focus on school and friends instead of fame.”

We go on to talk about the intense realism of the show— “It takes some effort, but I believe the success of the show speaks for itself”— and other such topics.

One such point regarded the merger of Pulitzer Productions and Hearst Co.“Bill and I realized that it was probably for the best. He had the crew and I had the cast,” Pulitzer looks fond. “And we came together to create a hit.”

After a bit more talking, he apologizes and says he has a meeting to go to and bids me adieu.

An extremely charming and calculating man, Pulitzer is sitting at the top of a goldmine of extremely profitable entertainment content. Everytime it appears he’s hit the top, he finds a way to go higher. I wish him well on his journey up. 


	2. Carrying the Banner

Dust swirls as he hits the ground, blood dripping from his split lip. Quickly, he jumps back to his feet. He learned quick that trying to hide from the fight made it worse— for everyone, because if it only got _him_ punished all he would do is hide.

He readies his fist and reminds himself that the quicker he finishes this fight, the sooner it will be over. At least, for now. There is no rest, no relief, not really.

Striking forward he punches the enemy in the face and knees him in the stomach. Quickly, the other falls to the ground and doesn’t get back up.

“Cut!” The director yells. The camera man lowers his camera and backs away, ready to move to his position for whatever the next shot may be.

Jack grimaces as he wipes the blood from his face and pulls Race to his feet.

* * *

The director, Snyder (“the spider,” the boys call him, but only when he is nowhere near to hear it), is a greasy man who has made himself an enemy to the boys. His large appearance serves to remind them of the hunger they always feel, knawing away at their insides. He yells at them to fight like they want to hurt each other and shows them how if they prove too weak.

But it’s been years since they’ve needed his guidance. No longer amateurs, they tease Snyder and his cameramen, Oscar and Morris, only after the three have gone home and the boys are left in the cold, dank room with not enough heat, not enough space, and not enough food. The only surplus they have is boys and rats.

After twelve hours of running and fighting and jumping and screaming and crying, they are dimissed to eat bread, drink water, and sleep. The starving boys scarf down what they are given and pack into the lodging area to rest.

Jack’s bunk buddy was sleeping in the refuge so he was cold the whole night.

* * *

“Les, get back here! LES!” David went running down the road after his brother. Les had gotten the ridiculous idea of exploring and had been trying to escape from his watchful eye all morning and into the afternoon.

Sarah was having friends over so he was instructed to take his brother out and pass the time. David planned on walking around and eventually grabbing a snack and going to the movies. Les, however, seemed to have different plans.

David watched as Les dodged around corners, the sidewalks getting emptier and emptier as they want. Feeling sick to his stomach, David quickened his pace to try and catch up, but it was too late.

He rounded a corner and was just about to call out again for Les when he almost ran face first into a crowd of boys his age.

A large group of boys were crowded on the pavement and further down were cameras, lights, boom mics, and old men yelling.

“Group one dismissed!” Someone yelled and the crowd started to move towards the building next to them.

_Oh_ , _we_ _stumbled_ _onto_ _a_ _movie_ _set_ , David thought. _We need to leave before we get in trouble for trespassing or something._

But then he saw one of the loud men cuff a young looking boy on the back of the head as he passed by. The man growled, “Don’t pull a stunt like that next time or else,” and the boy nodded with his head down and continued walking.

David didn’t like this at all. He needed to get Les immediately and get out of here. And then he can figure out what to do next. _One step at a time,_ ~~~~he thought, _breathe._

He glimpses the blue shirt Les is wearing and lunges forward to grab his arm.

“Wha-?” Les starts to ask but David cuts him off.

“Shush, we’re getting out of here now,” David began to pull him at a brisk walk, trying to not stand out but also get out of there as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, a shout rang out from one of the men, “Who are they? Stop those two!”

Hands grabbed them both and he lost a hold of Les and he didn’t know what to do. A voice above him asked, “what do we do with ‘em, boss?”

“Hmm,” the greasy man didn’t even look up before answering. “They’ve seen more than we can afford, throw them with the others and we’ll figure out their fate later.”

Once they got out of all of this, David swore, Les was going to get _quite_ an earful.


	3. The Boarding House

David and Les are pushed into the room and stumble a bit before regaining their footing. By then, the door has already been slammed behind them.

The dread inside of David grew heavier and heavier the more he looked around.

The concrete walls had chipped paint that stopped about an inch from the floor, where it was taken off by sitting water from flooding.Figures carved into the walls were scattered all around the room, including the alphabet and an eyeball.

Small rectangle windows were high up on the wall, touching the ceiling and were small enough that even someone Les’ size wouldn’t be able to pass through it.

There were bunk beds pushed up against the walls and each other, with small gaps to walk in between. Two or three boys laid in each bed and each group looked to be sharing a single, ratty blanket. The ceilings were so low, the arms of boys laying on their sides in the top bunks rubbed it.

Worst of all maybe, were the rats David could already see skittering around and scratch that— the worst was definitely the bucket in the corner that smelled of human excrement.

Then all the boys in the room seemed to look up together to scrutinize him. Gaunt eyes met his and he shivered.

* * *

Jack was busy staring out the tiny window by his bunk when the door opened and two boys are shoved in.

The first one is average height, not too muscular, impeccably dressed, and already has worry lines between his eyebrows despite appearing to be around the same age as the rest of the boys. The other is young- too young, younger than anyone here has been in a while. Physically and, judging by the worrying lip and wet eyes, emotionally as well. No one here has been that watery in ages.

But they are all soft in one way or another when they show up, even the tougher ones didn’t truly understand how much worse it could get until it did.

As the other boys all perk up to take in the sight of new recruits, which hasn’t happened in years, Jack hops down to greet them. In a matter of sorts at least.

“Newbies, welcome,” Jack drawled. “Youse just been picked up or were yah transferred over from the movin’ boys or any of the other departments?”

Who these boys are is crucial to how they treat them. If they were brought over from somewhere else, then they knew the gist of what was going on and only needed to adjust a little to the specific lifestyle Jack and his boys were living.

Judging by the look of them, he doubted it. Most likely they were just picked up and confused and scared and god, Jack was getting used to everyone knowing the cards they were dealt.

“W-what is this?” The older one managed to spit out. “Where are we, what’s going on here?”

Jack could feel the others looking at him to answer. Of course, Jack was untouchable to a certain respect and when it came to any issues they generally fell to him to solve them. For, if any thing went wrong, they needed Jack. There was only so much they could do.

“Alright listen up cuz I ain’t explainin’ this more than once,” he looked them both in the eyes to make sure they were paying attention. “You do what they’se tells you to do and you’ll be alright, okay? No matter what they say, you listen. Now, I don’t know why they wants yous, so this is jist some general advise for yah. You listen to them. You get angry, you hold it in until you ain’t aimin’ it at them. You see another boy doin’ somethin’ you don’t like, you take it up with me. We’se equals and we don’t go above each other’s heads when we’se unhappy with each other, alright? We firgure out our own shit.”

“Hey Jack, quit harpin’, I think they’s gots it,” quipped Crutchie.

He held his hands up. “Hey, I hads to make sure.” He even felt a little sorry when he saw the guilty look Elmer was wearing, but not enough to not mention it after the shit it got them into a while ago. “When we’s out there, everyone’s gotta do what theyse gotta do, yknow, it’s all fair enough. But, when we’s get back to this room, that’s all left behind alright? No being a hothead, okay?”

“Tell that to Race!” Albert stuck his tongue out.

“Hey, you stole my Coronas, that’s what you get!” Race slung back.

“Youse both a couple of numbskulls,” Crutchie smiled.

Since they had gotten in there, Les had been pulling at David’s sleeve. Finally, David noticed and looked at him.

“What?”

The boys overheard and looked over. Feeling the eyes on him, Les got nervous. “It’s just, well, they looked familiar and I just realized from what. They’re from that tv shot that Sarah really likes! Stricken or whatever!”

“What?” David’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah, I second what- hey what’s your name kid?” Jack shifted his eyes.

“David.”

“Yeah, what Davey said,” Jack refocused.

Les gulped. “Uh, well, it’s just. Don’t you guys know? Your tv show, our sister really likes it and I’ve watched it with her a few times. It’s really popular. So, why are you guys here? What is this place? I thought, with all the money you guys must have made, you’d have a nice place, yknow? Living in style!”

The room erupted.

“Popular?!”

“Money?!”

“People watch this shit?!”

“Where’s my fucking money, huh?!”

Boys were shaking each other, some were yelling angry questions and others were just yelling in general while a few other boys sat catatonic on their bed.

“Enough!” Jack yelled. And yelled. And yelled. Until finally everyone quieted down. He nodded and addressed the two new boys. “See, what youse got to understand is, we’se were under the impression that this was some corrupt type of situation in which these creepy motherfuckers film this shit for theyse own pleasure or some type of dark web type shit. We didn’t know that there was some type of profit being turned here.”

“Uh, yeah,” Les was quiet. “It’s a hit show. It’s kinda, uh, got a cult following type thing.”

David rallied behind him. “If that’s true, then what is this room? Why are you all living like this?”

Jack frowned and clenched his fists. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Probably should’ve mentioned that finals and the holidays was going to postpone this chapter lol. Here it is then, finally starting to pick up. The whole thing is like generally planned and this is pretty much the end of the exposition section- probably will be one more exposition section chapter and then we’ll get to the rising action. Tell me if something doesn’t make sense, bc it’s hard to tell when you’re the one writing it


	4. Don’t Come a-Knocking On My Door

Since it’s inception, Stricken seemed to be at the center of Joseph Pulitzer’s life. Of course, such a successful show needs attention. The only problem with this is Katherine, his daughter. A single, middle aged man dedicating himself to his work isn’t particularly strange- a single, middle aged man with a daughter, however, is a different story. 

Katherine decided early on that she would never watch the show. It didn’t matter how many viewers racked up- she could be the only person on the earth not watching and it wouldn’t matter, she refused to have anything to even do with show. She even blocked any show-related terms on every social media she had. 

She had just finished her senior year of college studying journalism and was returning home briefly. She had found a a nice little apartment to rent and a few job interviews lined up- of course she could already have a job guaranteed if she let her father _buy_ her a job, but where’s the integrity in that-but despite their strained relationship, she always made it a point to see her father at least once a year outside of Christmas. 

So that’s how she found herself headed into her dad’s office. She had stopped at the house, but of course he wasn’t there. Katherine decided it would be best to let him know she was home, or else she might not see him for weeks. 

His secretary waved her in to the office. Her dad didn’t look up when he spoke. “Nice of you to visit, Katherine. How are your classes going?”

”Nice to see you, too,” Katherine rolled her eyes. “I graduated.”

He finally looked up to quickly scrutinize her before going back to his work. “Any awards I should know of?”

”Not specially, but I did-“

He cleared his throat. “So no. It was nice seeing you, I’m sure you still know where everything is at home?”

“Yes,” she sighed and went to leave. “I’ll see you later?”

He waved his hand, “Yes, yes, goodbye Katherine.”

She left

—

Katherine knew in years past the interaction would’ve sent rage boiling in her stomach, ready to bubble over. Lately all it did was make her wonder why she ever tried. In her father’s eyes, nothing she ever did would measure up to the money making behemoth that was Stricken.

She had to wonder, what was so good about it? Why did people even watch the desperate money grabbing show that her father managed to put together?

For once in her life, the curiosity outweighed the spite. She vaguely knew of the show often filming close to here and took off walking.

—

“They must think yous got potential,” Jack drawled to the new kid, Davey, while the others were getting up. They scrounged together a bed last minute and let Les and David use it. Eventually they’d probably move more things around or at least add one more kid to their bed, but Jack, Race, and Crutchie decided it was probably best to give it a few nights first. 

“How do you figure?” Davey studied the room and it’s inhabitants. Once again, Jack noticed. The kid couldn’t keep his eyes from taking everything in, like he was Sherlock Holmes trying to figure it all out.

”Well, first of all they’s got you in here with us. If they really wanted to make use out of you, you’d be with Spot and his boys.” Davey raised his eyebrow so Jack explained. “They’s do a lot of the heavy lifting around her. Moving boys, yknow? Carry all that heavy equipment and such. It’d be real easy to put both of yous there and just forget about it all, they’s done it before. Nah, they must think yous gonna be worth something if they put you here. Write you in or something.”

—

Jack, for once it felt like, was not in a scene. He was bummin around on the edge of the set- long ago he lost the drive to run away, they always caught him one way or another and it did more harm than good- when he saw a girl striding towards him. 

Other than the few actresses recruited to appear every once and a while, Jack doesn’t know when the last time he saw a woman was. God, he really hoped she wasn’t an actress. If it was, or even if it was just a passerby, at least maybe he can have some fun. Might as well go for it, considering he’ll never see her again.

He channeled Romeo’s character when he grinned, “Hello miss, think it’s fate that we’re meeting right now?”

The girl visibly recoiled. Too much, Jack thought.

”Please go away, I’m just looking.” She looked straight in his eyes. Jack was infatuated.

He shot out a hand, “The name’s Jack Kelly.”

”Is that what it says on your rap sheet?” She deadpanned.

Jack laughed, “Oh, a smart girl, huh? I admire smart girls. Beautiful, smart, independent-“

”Do you mind?” She raised her voice. Jack furrowed his brow. This always worked whenever Romeo did. Of course that was all scripted, but it should apply, shouldn’t it?

“I’m sorry, miss.” Jack apologized. He really hadn’t meant to insult her. “It’s just you’re so beautiful.”

She scoffed and he laughed, “No, I’s just playin this time. Say, what are you doin round here? Yous not an actress are you?”

She shook her head, “No, of course not. I really am just looking. What, are _you_ an actor?”

”Well, as a matter of fact I am,” he winked. People like actors, right? He really wants her to like him. 

She grimaced but covered it quickly, “Well, the makeup department has done a real nice job on your bruises.”

”Oh, they’re not-“ Jack starts before he hears the Spider yelling.

”Kelly!”

Jack startles, “That’s my cue.” He goes to leave before deciding, what the hell, and grabs the girl’s hand and kisses it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing this I realized just how ridiculous all of this is. Like, acting au? Makes sense. But most people, I assume, would make it like normal. Like they’re actors but in a normal way. 
> 
> Instead, I go and do the Weirdest take by making it some of the angstiest shit ever, at least in my mind cause a lot of the angst is yet to come. None of this is normal and requires the suspense of a whole lot of disbelief but just in case you were wondering this was inspired by a lot of real stuff like stuff about how dangerous and unregulated movies used to be, especially for kids. It was also inspired by some news articles I saw about like some facility for kids or something (it’s been a while) that got in trouble for like all our hurting the kids. Also generally inspired by all the shit rich people do and get away with
> 
> Thanks for reading, sorry it took so long but no promises it won’t happen again

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comment and all that. More chapters to come soon.


End file.
